Intervening material does very little to cut out light. If it did, we couldn't see distant stars.
However the intensity of radiation falls off as the square of the distance from the source of the radiation.
Therefore the primary determinant of risk is the number of stars that could be about to go boom within the critical distance of the Sun. If we're in a less densely populated neighborhood, then our odds of seeing a dangerous supernova go down. Full stop.
The fact that there are patches of dust doesn't change the fact that we are seldom in the middle of such patches.
And even when we are, it is a lot like the difference between being in light mist versus seeing it from a long ways away. We are, in fact, in the middle of a patch of "mist" called the "local fluff". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Interstellar_Cloud for more. This does not noticably cut out light between us and stars that are under 100 lightyears away.